


Blank Spaces

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Flashback, M/M, Porn Battle, Post-Canon, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-25
Updated: 2010-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 19:37:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Toby goes to jail, Sam writes him letters, trying to remind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blank Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> For Porn Battle X, for prompts: _AU, untitled, mute_.

Josh frowns tightly and says, "Sam, you're turning into one of those women."

"Which women?"

"The women, you know, writing letters to-."

"A guy in jail?"

He sighs. "Yeah, Sam. That."

"Traditionally that's to serial killers. And they start up during the jail-time. We've been doing this since… for a while, anyway."

Josh turns his back and heads towards his own office. He says, "That's what I'm worried about."

*

_Dear Toby_, he starts, in the absence of other words. He doesn't know what he can and cannot say, Toby having lost the privilege of the sole right to his mail. Sam writes, _remember that night on the campaign bus, when it broke down and you and I went to look at the stars?_

Toby had been complaining the whole way but it had been a beautiful night and greater poets than they had been inspired by the sight of the heavens. Sam had pressed Toby against a tree and kissed him, in love with words and stars and the reflection of those lights in Toby's dark eyes.

He doesn't write that, just leaves the prompt for memory and, _Yours, Sam_.

*

_Dear Toby. I know you got the letter. Andy told me. She didn't say that you said thanks, but that's never stopped me before._ He smiles. _Remember the night in Alabama?_

Too warm, both of them, and they'd fought. About the heat, and losing the South, and the word progress. And secretly about Lisa, and Andy, and what you can and can't do during a campaign. Sam had won the argument hours ago but Toby was in the mood to make sure that everybody knew he'd been on the campaign longest and in politics longest. That while Sam had been studying in Ivy League campuses and going to frat parties, Toby had been out there rallying and becoming a thorn in quite a few people's sides. They raised their voices, not short of words tonight. CJ had walked in with a bucket of water and thrown it over both of their heads.

When she walked out, Toby had said, "That was your fault."

Sam had blinked water out of his eyes and ran his hands over his hair.

Toby glared. "You look like bad porn."

Sam leant back on the bed. "If I was in porn, I'll have you know it would only be of the highest quality."

Toby gave him one of those laughs Sam had not yet learnt how to decipher. It wasn't a laugh that encouraged you to join in; it made Sam flush instead. Toby sat alongside him on the bed and said, "Show me."

And because of the water dripping down Toby's throat, and because it was a game and it had been a fight, Sam did. He pushed Toby back against the bed, and slowly undid the buttons of his own sopping shirt. He slid his pants down his legs though this was all for Toby, and Sam's own satisfaction would be much later in the evening, locked alone in the tiny hotel shower. This time, this hour, Sam unzipped Toby's fly and proceeded to try his gag-reflex to the limit. Toby had been impressed by that, if not Sam's writing.

*

_California_, Sam writes, after yet more silence from Toby's side, _you must remember California. The end of my first campaign, afterwards in the hotel, after the bar. And then after the results, and my speech._

He doesn't know what else to say about that time. That little while, after Josh had left but before Toby did. They had shared a bed every night, though Toby's ex-wife had been pregnant and he had loved her more than he would ever care for Sam. He had been present then, in a way he had never been before with Sam as the only focus.

Toby had pressed him against the sheets and bent Sam's legs back so he could push inside. He had left dark bruises on Sam's hips, chest, ass – sucking and biting and holding too tightly. He didn't say 'stay' or 'you could still win' and so Sam hadn't said anything either.

*

_Or before that_, he writes, when Toby has still not responded and Sam is regretting bringing up one more goodbye they never said. They hadn't spoken since the news broke, and Toby was saying down the telephone, "No, Sam, you don't understand, I did what they're saying I did. Don't call me again." _It wasn't always like that. We won, sometimes. The second State of the Union. We couldn't stop saying it back to each other._

Sam had written a line of his prose on Toby's arm while Toby slept. It was a dare, he supposes now, and a reminder that the work belonged to both of them. Sam had fallen asleep on their one couch, head pillowed on his arms, and when he woke up he spent twenty minutes in the bathroom with one of CJ's compacts trying to read Toby's words low on the back of his neck.

Then there had been the last twenty-four hours, and neither of them slept at all, and even after the speech they were too wired to rest. Toby had driven Sam home but didn't leave, just walked upstairs with him and undressed him slowly. He had uncapped the pen which they are both always carrying somewhere about them, and touched it to Sam's shoulder.

Sam had arched at the contact, skin singing with nerves and restless exhilaration. And then laughed. "I'm surprised you have any words left."

Toby had kissed the spot where the pen marked Sam's skin. "For you," he said, "I'll think of something to say." It had been the closest they ever came to naming what they were doing, or at least it was the closest that Toby ever did.

Sam ends his letters, _do you remember? Yours, Sam._

Toby writes back after that last one. _No, Sam, I don't remember. But I remember that you wanted to be President one day. You should too._

There are no more words, after that.


End file.
